BIRTHDAY POINTS WOULD BE GREAT

Shanghai, China: Thursday, April 14, 2011

Paul heads into the China Grand Prix this weekend having scored in both the opening two grands prix in Australia and Malaysia. Ahead of the race at the Shanghai International Circuit, and his birthday on Saturday, Paul spoke with Jim McGill:

"Yeh, it would be a great birthday present to score again this weekend," Paul, who finished 10th in both Australia and Malaysia, said today after walking the Shanghai International circuit with his Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil.
"I'm obviously delighted with what we've achieved in the opening two races, but what matters now is what happens this weekend." And Paul, who has outqualified Sutil in both opening races, is keen to use the German's pace as a barometer to measure his own pace.
"You can judge your performance on my teammate, and thankfully its been close," he continued. "Adrian is experienced, and I'm having to learn a lot quickly. It's tough to do what we are doing.
"But it's also a team effort over the weekend and the whole season. We're working well together because the constructors' championship is very important for the team."
Paul has prior knowledge of the circuit having completed a number of laps there last year in his role as Force India test driver, and he acknowledged the circuit demands an approach different to that at Melbourne and Sepang.
"The circuit at Shanghai demands something different from the cars and drivers. It has long corners, and in the approaches it's hard to pinpoint braking areas and turn-in points.
""The other thing is the weather will be quite a bit different to Malaysia in terms of the heat and humidity. That in turn has a knock-on effect on how the tyres need to be managed, so it's something both the team and I, plus the guys from Pirelli, will be concentrating hard on.
"But we're confident we'll be able to deliver the performance required and hopefully maintain our record of scoring in every race so far this season."